


and i could fight, but what's the use?

by archers_and_spies



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hunter gets drunk which is typical, Song: Back to You (Selena Gomez), Songfic, Valentine's Day!!!, it's basically just angst i don't know what to tag, there’s a lot of self deprecation going on in here kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22690567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archers_and_spies/pseuds/archers_and_spies
Summary: Maybe she’s not sleeping because every time she closes her eyes, his face reappears. Not his smiling face, the one she’s grown so fond of-- that spring evening in the gala, the lighthouse by the Estonia sea, the carnival with the smell of popcorn wafting through the air-- no, every time she even gets close to drifting off she sees his heartbroken face when she rejected him, his blue eyes so full of sorrow she had to close the door to avoid looking at him any more.
Relationships: Kate Bishop/America Chavez, Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse, Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	and i could fight, but what's the use?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stvckys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stvckys/gifts).



> Disclaimer - I own nothing and everything belongs to Marvel. Except for the song which Selena wrote
> 
> This is kind of an au? They don’t live on a plane or in an underground base. I’m not very familiar with the show itself so excuse any plot holes and for the sake of the story pretend they don’t exist :D
> 
> Before you read this I would like to apologize in advance for a n g s t, the excessive use of the word "they", the inconsistency of the dash being an actual dash and two hyphens (I was writing on both my laptop and phone) and also any mistakes because this is largely unedited, Happy Valentine's Day :)

_You could break my heart in two  
But when it heals it beats for you  
I know it’s forward, but it’s true_

**23:54**

Hunter knows Daisy and Lincoln were trying to make him feel better. He only agreed to come so they would stop bugging him even though he knew how much he would be third-wheeling, and he regrets it. So much.

_Come on, we’ll have fun_ , they said. _We’ll dance all night and maybe you’ll even meet someone new. If that doesn’t work out, you can always get drunk._

He’s not interested in dancing or meeting someone new, so instead he sits down at the bar and orders a drink for himself. After the bartender hands the glass to him, he turns on his stool and faces the crowd (actually already thinning, which is quite unbelievable, it’s so early-- but what would Hunter know, he has such a messed up sleep schedule) as the people dance to the rhythm of the music. 

The crowd parts for two seconds and he gets a fleeting glance of Daisy and Lincoln. In the midst of everyone else jumping up and down and/or screaming lyrics, the lovebirds are actually slow-dancing. He watches as Lincoln twirls Daisy around, beaming at her, and when she’s back to facing him he whispers something in her ear which leaves her blushing fiercely. 

Hunter thinks he might actually throw up, and turns back to face the bar. The bartender, a young girl with black hair in a purple shirt, is watching him intently.

“You look lonely,” she observes.

“My friends dragged me here,” he says as if that explains why he’s moping alone at the bar.

The girl takes pity and makes him another drink, refusing to accept the five dollar note he puts on the bar. “On me. You’re Hunter, right? Lance Hunter.”

He tenses. “Who are you and what do you want?”

She laughs and puts her hands up. “Relax, relax! I’m not going to do anything. Kate Bishop.” She doesn’t offer him a handshake. “Five seconds into our first conversation, and you’re already considering pulling that gun you keep tucked against your waist on me. Chill.”

He removes his hand from where he keeps his gun. “How do you know who I am?”

She looks left and right before taking out her phone and showing him the screen. It’s a selfie of Kate winking at the camera, her face taking up a quarter of the picture, and in the background is someone blond whose right foot is stuck in a toilet bowl and looks very distressed. He takes a closer look, because that can’t be--

“I trust you know who this is,” Kate says. “Apologies for the… uh… chaos. This is the most decent one I have.”

“What’s the point of all this?” Hunter asks exasperatedly.

“The _point_ is, Clint Barton’s been keeping tabs on you.”

Hunter doesn’t know whether to be intimidated or impressed with himself, so he just stays silent. Kate looks at him like there’s something very obvious that he’s not getting.

“He’s been keeping tabs on you… because he wants Bobbi to be happy, and he wants to make sure you’re the right man for that.”

His stomach usually does some kind of lurch when he hears her name unexpectedly, but all through the night he’s had the feeling it would come up eventually— the universe just loves to torment him.

“Look… part of the reason I came here was to get away from all that, and I’m not exactly comfortable talking about this—“

“We have a betting pool going,” Kate goes on, ignoring him. “Natasha thinks you won’t last five months. I think you won’t last three.”

First name basis with the Black Widow. That can’t be good.

“I don’t think I need to hear this,” Hunter says and gets up from his stool, turning to leave when Kate calls, “Hey.”

He braces himself for some lame-ass insult but instead she says, “For the record, Barton thinks you two will last. So.” She shrugs to get rid of the awkward silence between them. “But, never trust someone who actually believes in the concept of soulmates.”

He lets out a half laugh, half scoff as he sits back down on the stool. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but Bobbi and I broke up a few days ago.”

Kate raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“What do you mean, _and_?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t sit there and tell me this hasn’t happened before. You and your on-off ridiculousness.”

“Well, it has, but…” _But every time it feels different. Even if I know we’ll go running back to each other, being apart from her is slow and exhausting and brutal_ \--

“Do you miss her?”

He ducks his head. “Every second.”

Kate checks her watch then. “Would you look at that-- it’s midnight. Happy Valentine’s day. Also, that’s the end of my shift. My girlfriend should be here to pick me up any second.” She starts cleaning up the excess glasses, then walks around the bar to face Hunter.

“Don’t screw this up,” she says looking right into his eyes, and it’s a fearful warning, a hopeful suggestion, a menacing threat, all at the same time.

_I wanna hold you when I’m not supposed to  
When I’m lying close to someone else_

**01:18**

Everyone’s gone by now. A girl with curly brown hair came to pick Kate up with a bouquet of roses and a kiss. Lincoln and Daisy took a cab home. 

Hunter chose to stay. There’s a certain sense of comfort that fills you when you’re alone in a place that’s usually cramped with people. Here he can be left alone with his thoughts ~~, which is not necessarily a good thing, he’s learned over the years~~.

He thinks about how he’s going to get home. He doesn’t know the way to the closest subway station. He’ll hail a cab, if he’s lucky. He really should’ve thought this out.

He thinks about home. He thinks about Bobbi and her mystifying scent, the way she doesn’t hold back in a fight, her fierce grin when she pins him down to the mat. He thinks about how resigned and miserable she looked when she told him she couldn’t do this anymore, the sound of his own heart breaking, the door slamming into his face.

Sometimes it takes having an empty club to yourself at one in the morning to come to the conclusion that _you’re just not worth it_.

_You’re stuck in my head and  
I can’t get you out of it_

**01:20**

She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s not even doing anything. She doubts she has the will to.

She knows she’s supposed to be sleeping, but she’s not tired. The sheets of her bed are bunched around her waist, and sitting on the mattress beside her is her mobile phone, switched to Do Not Disturb mode.

In case he calls. In case she sees his name on the screen and gives in. In case. It’s taking her everything not to turn the screen on and check if he’s actually dialled.

This— this thing they do— has happened so many times that she’s lost count, and it gets worse every time-- this feeling of emptiness inside her, this _ache_ in her heart that she can’t exactly put her finger on. She finds herself starting to wonder why she ever left him in the first place, which is bad, because that’s usually when she stops trusting herself, does reckless stuff and things spiral out of control.

Maybe she’s not sleeping because every time she closes her eyes, his face reappears. Not his smiling face, the one she’s grown so fond of-- that spring evening in the gala, the lighthouse by the Estonia sea, the carnival with the smell of popcorn wafting through the air-- no, every time she even gets close to drifting off she sees his heartbroken face when she rejected him, his blue eyes so full of sorrow she had to close the door to avoid looking at him any more.

She hopes to God he won’t do anything stupid. But then again, isn’t this what always happens? They break up, they miss each other, they apologize and make up like they’re characters in a romance drama-- but they’re not, because they blink and they’re both snapping at each other again, body shaking in both fury and fear as the other attacks their weaknesses they know like the back of their hand, and in the end they just end up on different sides of the door. Again. It’s a toxic cycle that’s killing them both slowly.

But.

When they’re together, Bobbi just throws everything she’s trained herself to do away. She lets down her guard, trusts him to have changed, and yes, maybe it all leads to an inevitable downfall over and over again, but she sees stars when she looks into his eyes. She’s never found anything to be as exhilarating as the rushing sensation of him trailing kisses down her jaw. When he buries his face into her neck, it feels right, like they were born to do this.

Bobbi knows what dying feels like-- she’s been on the edge too many times. There’s the time she got shot three times, the time she nearly fell down a thirty-story elevator shaft, but this is different. This is taking her apart from the inside, burning her up until she starts doubting everything she’s ever known.

But she knows one thing, and she’s hanging on to the thought like it’s the only thing keeping her from falling-- no matter what, it’s Hunter, it was always Hunter, it will always be Hunter.

_We’re going to be okay… right?_ She asks the shadows cast across her room. When no one answers her, she picks up her phone with a quivering hand.

_If I could do it all again  
I know I’d go back to you_

**01:42**

Hunter turns when he hears the door to the bar open, already expecting to see her yet dreading it anyway.

“Hey,” Bobbi says cautiously as she makes her way slowly to where he’s sitting, where he’s been sitting for the past hour. “What’s keeping you up?”

There’s no point trying to lie to her-- it’ll probably just make her angry, so instead he replies, “You,” and buries his face in his hands. He’s tired of all this, of feeling worthless.

She sits down on the stool next to him. “I want to help you.”

“How did you even know where I was?”

“Tracked your cell phone.”

“Of course.” He shakes his head. What more could go wrong tonight?

“Hunter-- look at me.” 

He does, and her blue gaze pierces through his soul, like she knows exactly what he’s feeling.

She lays her hand on his. “I meant it. I want to help you.”

He scoffs, “Well, this thing we do, running away and then running _back,_ that’s not helping me much. It’s not helping either of us, evidently.”

“No, it’s not,” she agrees softly. “And I want to stop doing it. I just want us to be happy, together, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll never be mad at you again, the same way you can’t guarantee you won’t walk out on me.”

“I’m a mess.”

“Ask if I care.”

“I’m a mess, and I don’t deserve you.”

“But you’ll agree that _I_ deserve you, hmm?” She counters. “I deserve to be with the one person who has the ability to make me feel truly special.”

He leans his forehead on her shoulder, and she runs a comforting hand through his hair. “I’m a selfish person. And I can be a real jerk sometimes.”

Bobbi’s heart breaks. “One of these days I’m going to teach you how to love yourself. Until then, I promise to love you for the both of us.”

Hunter isn’t worried anymore. He’s not panicking over the ways he’s going to get home, he’s not scared of being alone, because he trusts Bobbi.

When they finally make their way into her bed, Hunter falls asleep immediately. Bobbi looks at his fluttering eyelids, wondering what he’s dreaming about. There are so many words she wants to say to him, but for now she settles with five:

“We’re going to be okay.”

_And I could fight, but what’s the use?  
I know I’d go back to you_

**Author's Note:**

> So this was kinda a fun pairing to write ~~cause they have so much in common with clintnat~~ (excuse the angst/self deprecation). I’m actually only on the end of season 2 of this show so nO sPoiLeRs, and I’m excited to see where the show takes them next!
> 
> [Find me on my other platforms here!](https://linktr.ee/karasnecklace)


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